yesimthetaxman wrote:If (* 2 2 2) is somehow converted to (* (* 2 2) 2), then that extra step used in the conversion would mean that technically it would take slightly longer for the CPU to compute right?

Now, what does (CALLSR 3 57) do? Let's have a look at the FUNTABR structure in eval.d. The 57th entry, along with the comment above it, tells us that we're looking for the star function in lisparit.d. Its implementation is: